


fade and wither

by josiebelladonna, nirvhannahcornell (josiebelladonna), xtinamoon (josiebelladonna)



Series: joeyrotica [9]
Category: Anthrax (US Band), Bandom
Genre: Biting, Don't Examine This Too Closely, F/M, First Time, Light Sadism, Making Out, One Night Stands, One Shot, Semi-Public Sex, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:27:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22244068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/josiebelladonna, https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/nirvhannahcornell, https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/xtinamoon
Summary: The boys go to a comic book store and spot a rare being in there.
Relationships: Joey Belladonna/Original Female Character
Series: joeyrotica [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1539070





	fade and wither

**Author's Note:**

> This was one of those things I thought of with kind of a feeling of “duh! Of course!”  
> The title by the way, is a line from Lolita. Little nod to the days in my senior year of high school when I was so obsessed with Russian literature.

The glass door swung open to let in a rather stout whoosh of bitter cold New York air into the long, narrow bright lit book store. Despite stretching back from the street corner, and beholding bright golden lights on the ceiling overhead, it was a modest place, the hub for the bookworms and the comic nerds across the City to congregate in, away from the judgmental eyes of the world outside the clean scrubbed tinted windows. What happens here, stays here, and if it doesn’t, it’s kept between circles. Throughout the place stood rows upon rows of books, but in the middle of the floor stood the center piece, the flagship: two long dark wooden tables with boxes full of comic books, some of them still in mint condition in their plastic wrapping, some of them used.

Scott entered first, huddled down in his heavy black wind breaker, with tendrils of his thinning dark hair streaming around either side of his head. He clasped onto his hair at the back of his head as he stepped away from the door. Frank followed with his hood pulled over his long, velvety black hair thus obscuring the top part of his face; he looked quite warm and comfortable, even as his dishy body was wrapped in a quite ostentatious rain coat. Charlie tried to beat him inside of the shop, but Frank had the upper hand with his long, lanky, baseball player's legs. The tufty crown of Dan's head just rose over the handle of the shop, but he managed to prop the door open for Joey who, despite not being the biggest expert on comics, wanted to join in on the fun and get to know his band better.

The young college drop out behind the counter greeted Scott first. He took off his coat to show off his Sam Kinison shirt to the clerk, who gave him a high five at the sight of it.

“I should'a known,” he teased Scott, wagging his finger at him. “By the way, we just got the new Judge Dredd book in yesterday. Newly released, previously unreleased, still inside of a box.”

“I'm droolin', man,” cooed Scott, stripping off his coat and running his fingers through his thin hair. “Gimme. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!”

The clerk reached underneath the counter for the smooth black box and set it down on the counter top before him. Frank, who had taken off his hood, joined him from the left for a peek inside himself: the lid lifted off and both men took a whiff of that new paper smell, that smell so reminiscent of having been taken right off the press. The ink gleaned under the golden lights over the ink, bestowing it a lovely subdued shine.

“I'm almost afraid to touch it,” confessed Frank as he took off his jacket and lay it on the counter in front of him.

“I know, right?” Scott agreed with him.

Charlie tackled the trading cards next to the counter, the ones pertaining to _Star Wars_ and _Night of the Living Dead_. Eager but careful not to do anything considerable to the cards, he flipped through the ones with Darth Vader in particular, given they too were brand new. At one point, he caressed the front of the top card to feel the grooves of the ink over the smooth paper. It was all so perfect, so intact, so precious.

Danny skirted along the section of the comics dedicated to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, complete with his coat slung over his shoulder so as to show off his maroon and gold jersey. To think he was so close to composing the soundtrack for the new movie the year before, and yet the producers decided not to deal on him. Win some, lose some, as Scott would say. He ran his fingers over the top edges of the books at the front of the stack and hung there for a moment before turning heels and heading over to the literature section near the back of the shop. Wandering about down the aisle with his hands in his pockets, he searched about the shelves for something to catch his eye. He turned a left hand corner, away from the romances and the murder-mysteries and towards the science fiction section. Danny spotted one of Isaac Asimov’s books on robotics: there was no way he could turn away from this one.

Meanwhile, for Joey, it all seemed so overwhelming, such that he had no idea what to pick out first. Nothing stuck out to him, even though he recognized some of the big names, from Superman and Batman to Catwoman and Wonder Woman. He held his overcoat over his forearm to better show off the big white Hold Your Fire era Rush sweatshirt he had on, the only guy in the whole place wearing a band shirt it seemed. He stuffed his free hand into his snug jean pocket as he made his way over to the literature section to catch up with Danny: Scott, Frank, and Charlie were too preoccupied with their obsessions at the moment. 

Once he noticed Danny had his nose in a book of robotics, he figured it was the same story there. Such was the life of an upstate jock walking the streets of the City among four bookworms. That is, until something caught his eye at the other end of the aisle, down by the murder-mysteries.

She was short, about Danny's height, with long wavy jet black hair from the crown of her head down to the seat of her skin tight black jeans. On one side of her head were several dyed stripes of fiery red, as red as a plump ripe strawberry, juxtaposed over stripes of rich dark scarlet. Joey eyed the crisp white leather sleeves from the heavy black suede bodice of her jacket, and the tiny white stars on the black waistband: underneath the jacket was a short pleated black miniskirt over black pinstriped tights, and little black flats. He spotted a squarish black leather purse slung around to the top of her thighs. And to top of her whole look, she had on black fingernail polish and matching thick framed glasses, and deep maroon red lipstick.

The kisses of red among the monochrome were enough to make his heart pound inside of his chest.

 _No way_ , he thought. _A girl in here? I can’t. I’m not booksmart like these guys. She’s way out of my league_.

Joey shook his head and turned towards Danny. The sci-fi section—how fun! But the only sci-fi he knew about was _The Twilight Zone_ and that was just a TV show.

“D’you find anything you like, Joe?” asked Danny, glancing up at him for a brief moment before returning his attention to Asimov’s lush prose.

“Eh, I’m having a hard time to be honest,” Joey replied, fixing the jacket slung over his arm.

“That’s alright—you can’t win ‘em all. You into sci-fi at all?”

“I try my best, to be honest.”

“Best approached with an open mind...” Joey lifted his gaze to the woman at the far end of the aisle, her attention still fixated on the book she cradled in her hands. If only he could seek an interest in books like that himself, perhaps he could strike up a more nuanced conversation with City folk than just “I’m the singer who’s also a hockey player from the backwoods of upstate—yeehaw!”

“You are willing to learn things, after all,” Danny pointed out.

“True.”

“Sci-fi is just that—best approached with an open mind like what you’ve given us.” Frank strolled on over with his coat hanging loose around his shoulders, so he folded his bare arms over the stack of books on the other side of the shelf as part of his eavesdropping.

“Open minds, baby,” he added with a devilish grin on his face. Joey dropped his gaze to the shelves before him.

“I guess I just like old things,” he remarked, running the fingers of his free hand through his fluffy inky black curls. He spotted _Fahrenheit 451_ right underneath Frank’s left hand. “Old things with a twist.”

It was a reissue of the novel he read in school that one year, hence why he picked it up. The nostalgia! He turned it over with his free hand to read the back cover.

“A twist of lemon?” Scott teased him from the front counter.

“A twist of lemon, exactly!” Joey laughed, and the clerk and Charlie joined in with him.

Danny turned the page of the book and held it closer to his face as if concentrating more on the text. Joey cleared his throat, and he knew he should’ve had a drink of water before leaving the recording studio.

“Joey,” Frank started in a low voice. He looked up at him, still lingering there with his arms folded over the top of the shelf.

“Joey…” Frank gestured to the other side of the room, where the woman stood with the book in her hands. “…she just looked at you.”

Joey swallowed and shifted his weight. He glanced over at her again, this time to find a part of her red dyed hair had spread over part of her face thus obscuring her expression. He never been with a girl before, much less been checked out by one.

“What should I do?” he asked Danny in a hushed voice.

“Go talk to her,” he gently encouraged him, never letting go the edges of the book. “It's not often a girl comes into a place like this. Besides, you're the only one of us who's single. Have at it, man.”

“Yeah, that’s not a sight one sees every day in a place like this, either,” Frank chimes in. “Not many ladies find their way into nerd haven.”

Joey fetched up a sigh and licked his lips. He was in dire need of a glass of water, a mug of coffee or tea, even a glass of lemonade would do the trick. But if this chick sought an interest in him, he had to step out of his comfort level.

“Guard my coat with your life,” he advised Frank and Danny as he put the book back and lay his coat over the books on the top shelf. He gave his ringlets a shake and then moseyed his way over to her. Once he came within range of her, he slowed his pace and tucked his hands back into his jeans pockets. He cleared his throat and ran his tongue over his bottom lip again.

“Excuse me,” he started in a bold voice, even though his heart pounded away in his chest. He resisted the tremble trying to wriggle its way through him. She lifted her gaze from the pages to show him her deep, hypnotic brown eyes behind her stylish glasses.

“I couldn't help but notice…” His voice broke but he kept it together. “...you looked in—our direction.”

“Yeah,” she answered in a rich low voice. “You picked up the exact same book I have at home right now.”

“Oh. Oh, really?” An odd coincidence.

“Yeah. The other boy next to you’s reading Asimov, too. Genius—I’ve read his laws of robotics from cover to cover.” She grinned at him and he returned the favor, flashing her the slight hole in the right side of his teeth. He felt so exposed and so out in the open, but she seemed kind enough to him that he could lower his wall a little more for her.

“I'm Joey,” he said, his voice breaking.

“I'm Cherise,” she introduced herself to him. “But I go by Cher.”

“Cher—” he repeated. He shifted his weight and bowed his head in hopes to make the coarse, tightly curled ringlets of hair on the side of his head obscure his brown eyes and the oddly reddish bloom crossing his face.

“Can I ask you a question?” he sputtered out; he cleared his throat but nothing could deny the warm feeling blooming over his olive skin.

“Yes,” she answered. “Yes, you can.” A shy little smile crossed her face. She removed her glasses and flicked her rich brown hair back from her comma shaped eyebrows that made him think of Madonna. He swallowed again.

“Uh—I'm not really into comics at all,” he admitted to her. “Do you have anything you could recommend to a novice such as myself?”

“Comics? I’m afraid I don’t. I’m more of a book gal myself. Sci-fi, murder-mysteries, psychological stuff, erotica...”

“Erotica, really?”

She closed the book and held it down by her thighs. Tossing her hair back with nothing more than a flick of her head, she turned to face him. Even though his sweatshirt proved to hang off of his slim body enough to hide his shape from her, he couldn’t resist tucking in the toned muscles on his belly.

“Did one of them,” she started, lowering her voice enough for him to hear her; “those four guys over there that you came in with—ask you to come over here to tell me that one of them likes me?”

His mind went blank for a split second, before he realized what she asked him.

“Yes,” he replied, clearing his throat again.

“Aw, that's too bad,” she confessed, tilting her head to the side. “Neither of them are really my type.”

“Not your type?” He knitted his eyebrows together.

“Not my type. Although...” She puckered those rich dark cherry red lips at him. “I—I'm not gonna lie to you, though. I think you're kinda cute.”

“Y-You do?” he stammered, swallowing even though his throat was parched and dry.

“Yeah. I think your hair is just divine. I’ve always had a thing for upstate boys, too—you’re all kind of in your own world up there. And I’ve always liked odd creatures. You wanna—take a little walk around the place, see what else there is here?”

“I don’t see why not.” He shrugged and showed her another little crooked grin. She kept the book down by her waist as they ambled towards the end of the aisle. But before they ducked behind the row of shelves, Cherise stopped him right in his place with her free hand on his shoulder, and then on his chest.

“Don't tell them, though,” she whispered, pressing a finger to his dark lips.

“I won't,” he whispered back to her, and flashed her a wink. They disappeared behind the corner of the bookshelf towards the others, away from the rest of the shop. Joey cleared his throat once more.

“Are you feeling alright?” asked Cherise. “You’re clearing your throat an awful lot.”

“Yeah, I’m just dying of thirst.”

“Maybe we can grab something to drink soon,” she suggested, “that is, if you’re willing.” She peered up at the high shelves overhead, and he followed her gaze. Every shelf was painted black and the signs on the front all beheld thick black calligraphy.”

“Oh, I love this section,” she declared. “The Gothic section.”

“Spooky dark Goth section,” he teased her. She giggled, and then she took a glimpse up at the sight of some new pens on the shelf right above his head. New pens with accompanying feathers on the ends. They were fancy, and he knew it and so did she.

“Could you reach that one for me?” she suggested, nodding to the one closest to his head.

“What, that purple one?”

“Yeah. Pretty please?”

Joey cleared his throat yet again and patted his chest. The frilly purple plume hung right above his head, perhaps within reach, perhaps not.

“I dunno if I can—worth a shot, though.”

He leaned against the shelf and extended his arm up to the shelf. Unbeknownst to him, the hem of his shirt rose up from the waistband of his jeans.

“Ooh—“ she squeaked.

“What?” He hesitated right there.

“Cute belly.”

He peered down at the little sliver of light brown skin peeking out from under his shirt. Still a very thin man, but with a little more definition from his playing hockey in his spare time and adding a little extra cream to his morning cup of coffee. Still very thin, but with enough flesh to make her show him a little love.

“I try my best,” he admitted as he continued to grope around the shelf for the pen. He held onto the base of the plume, and brought his arms down, and handed it to her. He straightened out his shirt before they walked onward down the hard, clean-smelling carpet. She flicked the pen about, which made the plumes of the feather flutter around. They reached the end of the aisle, past all of the Anne Rice books, the Bronte sisters, Edgar Allen Poe, _Frankenstein_ , and even _The Castle of Ontranto_ , to the far corner on the edge of the shop, near the back door.

Cherise then stepped in front of Joey and brought herself close to him.

“What’re you doing?” he demanded, startled.

“You are so cute, and so sweet,” she whispered, tucking the book into her purse, and tucking the purse behind her back, “—and it’s too bad one of those four guys wants me because I want you.”

Joey glanced around the aisle. They were the sole ones back there: as far as he knew, Danny and Frank knew nothing of their whereabouts there. He peered up at the golden lights on the ceiling: they all shone down on the other shelves and the tables with the comic books; the back here was bathed in shadow. Cherise kept the pen tucked under her index finger as she pressed her hands to his chest. Joey glanced around to make sure there was no one behind him: there was in fact a nook between the bookshelf and the wall. He backed up in there; he could smell her gentle but spicy perfume wafting off the side of her neck and the locks of hair behind her shoulder.

“I want you,” she begged him in a breathy voice, staring into his earthy brown eyes. “I want you so much. You’re lonely, and dark, and mysterious, like Frankenstein... you need all of the love in the world.”

“That’s—very kind of you, Cher,” he stammered, his throat closing up. “But I—” He wasn’t able to finish as she pressed her lips to his. He could smell that odd scent of her lipstick right under his nose. He shifted his weight there against the wall; she put her arms around his waist to hold him closer to her. Joey squirmed in her grasp, but between the spicy smell on her neck and in her hair and the feel of her red lipstick on his skin, those lips like ripe black cherries, there was no way he could resist her. He closed his eyes and let her lead the way.

She was gentle on him, guiding her hands down to his butt and his hips. The soft denim brushed against her skin and the inside of her fingers as she gave him a gentle squeeze. Soft whimpers escaped from his mouth as she made her way onto his neck.

“Touch me,” she whispered into his ear.

“Where?”

“Under the skirt.”

He let his fingers glide underneath her miniskirt and onto the band of her tights. He tugged her panties aside so his fingers crawled across her bare skin. He fondled his way to her lips to give her a little fingering.

Cherise gasped into his ear. She brought her lips back to the side of his neck for a little nibbling. Joey gritted his teeth and curled his toes inside of his Chuck Taylors, but it gave him a feeling he wasn’t all too familiar with, a euphoric feeling. A state of euphoria.

“Hey, Joey!” Scott hollered from the front of the shop. “Joey? Where are you, man?”

“Shit,” Joey groaned, taking his first two fingers out of her moist lips and spitting out some hair which made its way into his mouth. Cherise lifted her head from his neck to look into his eyes one more time.

“You have to go,” she stated, her face solemn. “Oh, the good things never last.”

“You’ve got that pen on you, don’t you?” he pointed out.

“Nothing to write on, though.”

“Damn it! Well, let’s get ourselves organized here and walk on out.”

“What happens here, stays here,” she whispered into his face.

“What happens here, stays here,” he repeated with a wink to her. Cherise stepped back to adjust her tights, and her miniskirt, and her purse. He nibbled on his bottom lip and tasted the lipstick still. He rubbed some of it off with the fingers on his other hand. Cherise sauntered off in the direction they had come in, and Joey ducked into the aisle before him to the bathroom to wash his hands and the lipstick off of his neck. Even with the lipstick off of his lips, he could still taste her.

He still craved a drink of water as he headed back out into the front of the shop, where Scott, Danny, Frank, and Charlie awaited him at the counter.

“What the hell’s going on?” Frank teased him as he handed him his coat.

“Let’s just say—” Joey started, thinking of what to say to them as he put his jacket back on. He could still feel her lips and her teeth on the side of his neck and he could still feel her moist lips on his fingers. “—I got a little lost and then I had to use the little boys’ room.”

“Makes sense,” Charlie replied, shrugging and flashing him a mischievous wink.

As they headed out of there and back into the street, and Joey rounded out the back, he held the door for Cherise, with the lipstick on her lips smeared under the bottom, and the pen and book in a little brown paper sack under her arm. But she showed him a sweet little smile as she stepped back out into the cold New York City afternoon.

“I wish we could have more fun, you good boy,” she told him in a low voice.

“Keep me in your memory, baby doll.” He winked at her as they parted ways there on the sidewalk.

**Author's Note:**

> Her name, by the way, is a play on the French _cerise_ , meaning “cherry” 😘🍒


End file.
